


Frosted Glass

by batonblue



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Face-Fucking, Fluff and Smut, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:00:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27000865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batonblue/pseuds/batonblue
Summary: “If we died tomorrow, what would we do tonight?”“Probably something like this,” JT barely breathes it, because Malcolm’s lips are a centimeter from his own.[Warnings:  sexual content, casual suicidal ideations, self-harm, language, drug use, and did I mention graphic sexual content.][ok this is just angsty porn let’s get real]
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel, Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Frosted Glass

**Frosted Glass**

**.**

“If we died tomorrow, what would we do tonight?”

“Probably something like this,” JT barely breathes it, because Malcolm’s lips are a centimeter from his own.

[ **_Warnings_ **: casual suicidal ideations, self-harm, language, drug use, graphic sexual content.]

[this is just angsty porn let’s get real]

**.**

Malcolm lies. 

Little things. _The coffee’s fine; no I’m not cold; of course I ate. How ‘bout them Yankees?_

And the big things, too.

_I didn’t have any nightmares last night. I was late because I missed the bus, not because I tossed and turned and finally fell asleep at dawn and slept through my alarm._

_No, of course I would never try to kill myself._

His life is woven out of so many lies he can’t keep them all straight, and he feels like the biggest hypocrite alive because he wants the truth more than anything. About himself, his past, his memories, his broken family. But he can’t offer the same in return, and most days he thinks that’s just karma.

Other days, he thinks maybe he’s just cursed.

He watches the cold blue light through frosted glass. The world outside, the real world. Shadows dance and bend in meaningless, patternless motion. They’re vague, lacking detail. Dark shapes that don’t mean anything. Strangers he will never touch.

He waits inside the box, a prison his own mind created to cage him. Or to protect him. Some days they seem like two sides of the same coin. He flips it and can’t ever figure out which way it’s going to land. 

_I would never kill myself,_ he thinks, and stares down at the colorless scars that trace his skin. _I just like to know I have the option._

Sunshine rustles somewhere in the dark and he blinks, because when did it get dark? He can’t remember when the sun disappeared, leaving only a faint fluorescent glow drifting in as the streetlights blink on. 

He’s sitting on the floor in his kitchen and for the life of him he can’t remember how he got there.

He forces his lungs to expand, takes in a full breath and hopes the oxygen will wake him up. Clear his head. Bring him back to reality where the normal people live. It takes too long to put it all back together. He pictures his mind falling into little pieces sharp enough to cut him, pictures himself sweeping them back up with mangled hands and trying to force them back into place.

It takes too long but eventually he stumbles to his feet, his right ankle shooting with pins and needles beneath him because he’s been sitting there way too long. He shoves his shoes on and doesn’t bother to tie them. 

He needs fresh air, he needs noise and chaos, and peace and quiet, and some rip in the universe he can pour his bleeding brain into so he doesn’t have to carry it around anymore. 

Coat, keys, scarf. He tucks his phone into his back pocket and locks the door behind him.

**.**

  
  


JT laughs loudly; feels it ripple up from out of his chest. He lifts his beer overhead, listening to glass clink and beer slosh as the crowd of off-duty cops around him follows suit. He’s flanked by old coworkers: surrounded by friends and blue family. Everyone he’s closest to. 

_I should kill myself,_ he thinks to himself absently as he congratulates Spencer on his promotion and slaps the older cop on the back warmly.

He could set his beer down on the bar, walk towards the bathrooms. Pass them and head down the hall, out the door to the back alley. He could pull his duty pistol out of his hip holster and paint the brick and mortar.

He _could_ do any or all of those things at a moment’s notice, but he doesn’t. Instead he fakes a grin that almost feels real and cheers as Spencer gets challenged to take shots with some of the boys from the 1-9.

He hasn’t been sleeping lately. He’s been watching himself spiral into the pit, and he’s been here before but he never learned how to pull himself out of it. How to turn the tables, claw his way back to that everyday reality where he wakes up. Drives to work. Does his job like the good little soldier, because so many people expect that out of him. 

After all, he’s the strong one. 

JT drinks his beer and laughs at all the right times and thinks about driving home so he can at least be lonely _alone_.

“Another?” Spencer grins at him. JT watches a trickle of the shot that was mostly grenadine dripping down his beard.

“Like I’d ever say no to that,” JT huffs.

He should probably say no to a lot of things.

Instead he accepts another beer, takes another shot, and drinks it like it’s the last one he’ll ever have. 

Hell, maybe it is. 

**.**

Malcolm walks, aimless and drifting. Following one pool of light to the next as the streetlights jump in even rows down empty streets.

Central Park is a different monster at night. It’s cold and shadowed. Noisy as the wind blows unobstructed through the trees. And there are still people here, of course, because it’s never completely empty. Joggers and cyclists and meandering couples with linked hands.

Shadows through the frosted glass. Real, living, breathing people he’s become so far removed from he can’t do anything to fight his way back. 

Malcolm drifts through the shaded paths, his eyes trailing aimlessly, shoelaces dragging. He isn’t entirely sure what he’s looking for, if he’s trying to occupy his mind or clear it completely. Isn’t sure if that’s even possible.

He knows he needs to sleep. That it’s gone on too long, taken too much out of him. He knows it’s reaching the dark edge of dangerous. Infiltrating his mind with morbid ideas, invasive thoughts, doubts and questions. Dark things. Real and imagined.

He follows the path he doesn’t recognize, winding through thick overhangs of branches and foliage. There’s an empty fountain up ahead, framed by sidewalk and flowerbeds. A group of teenagers with skateboards and bicycles. Their faces light up in little glowing flashes as they flick a lighter and breathe out clouds of smoke.

The smell draws him in, because it’s familiar and he’s just tired enough to think he wants to do something stupid.

“Can I have one?” Malcolm asks. The kids look at him, laugh aloud like they think he’s joking at first.

A blonde girl with half of her head shaved, dark eyeliner and mismatched tall socks, is the one who takes pity on him. She wanders over and gives him an up and down like she’s suspicious. The expression falls off quickly.

“Sure. You need it more than me.” The teenager smiles at him like she feels sorry for him, hands over a rolled joint. He isn’t sure how he feels about that look but he takes it anyway. She hesitates, and passes a plastic lighter over with it.

“I hope I do,” Bright smiles, waving an awkward thank you as the kids throw their skateboards down and take off. 

He’s alone. 

Malcolm stares down at the innocuous little thing in his palm, all wrinkled wax paper with a twisted end. He thinks briefly about tossing it into the bushes. Next he thinks that this could very well be his last night on earth, and he’ll be damned if he’s going out sober. Or whatever it’s called.

Between the demands of school and a tumultuous personal life, he’s never smoked before. It’s not about some kind of moral opposition, it just never seemed like the right time. 

Right now, his brain tells him that he might never get the chance again: which is ridiculous because he’s not going to hurt himself. 

He’s _not._

Malcolm finds an empty park bench and he sits, facing an over-wide running path lined in edgeless asphalt. Past that an empty field slopes down towards the treeline. It’s as peaceful a place as any.

He lets his mind drift, his hands resting on his knees. Nerveless fingers turning over the plastic lighter aimlessly. The edges of reality bend and fade together as his eyes lose focus. He isn’t sure what he’s waiting for. If he’s taking it all in or hoping the world will open up and swallow him instead.

It’s peaceful, he thinks. A fitting last night. 

“Bright? What the hell are you doing out here?”

The voice jerks him awake, like the film clears over his eyes and life jumps back into color and sound.

Detective Tarmel is staring at him, and Malcolm has no idea where he came from but he’s not a figment of his imagination. Probably.

“I’m going to smoke marijuana,” he says almost proudly, holding up the single joint.

JT stares at him. Malcolm stares back. 

“Okay then.” The cop caves, walks up and takes a seat beside him. 

This is unexpected, but it only takes a moment or two of turning it all over in his mind before Malcolm decides he’s not actually imagining it. Somehow, JT is here. All furrowed brows and the intoxicating scent of old leather. Big and warm and tangible. 

They’re both quiet for a moment, Malcolm drifting numbly and rolling the joint between his fingers experimentally. JT collects his thoughts, looks over at him. He reaches over and pulls the lighter out of his limp fingers.

“This is a shit lighter. Always figured you’d have one’a those fancy metal ones. Maybe with like, a dragon on it or something.” 

Malcolm tilts his head in agreement, thinking it’s strange to have this casual company, but not unwelcome. 

“I’ve never done this before, actually. Sad, right?” He stares down at his hands. At the unfamiliar token of all the small things he never made time for. 

“It’s sad that I’m gonna have to teach you how to smoke a blunt,” JT sighs heavily, shaking his head. He flicks the lighter and holds it out for him.

“Twist it,” he gripes as Malcolm sticks the tip over the open flame. “Sheesh, kid.”

“I told you I’ve never done this before,” the profiler defends weakly, but there’s no real irritation in his voice. He studies the smoldering coals with interest.

“Yeah, you couldn’t tell.”

A long beat passes.

“This is the part where I smoke it, I think.”

“Guess all those fancy degrees weren’t a waste of money after all.” JT looks at him expectantly, leaning back, one arm thrown over the back of the bench. He’s wearing a dark blue shirt that stretches across his wide shoulders in a way that shouldn’t be as distracting as it is.

He’s not quite close enough for Malcolm to feel his body heat and for some reason that’s disappointing.

Malcolm presses the blunt to his lips to pull in a long breath, grimacing at the earthy taste, and holds it. He thinks he’s doing okay right up until his throat starts burning. He opens his mouth and his lungs at the same time, feels the smoke rush in and instantly starts hacking.

JT lets out a sigh of long-suffering and reaches over reluctantly to take the joint from him. The profiler is more than happy to surrender it so he can focus on coughing and heaving into his coat sleeve.

“You get that out of your system?” JT says condescendingly.

“Honestly, probably not.”

The cop shakes his head, but passes the joint back without a fight when the profiler stubbornly reaches for it.

“What are _you_ doing out here?” Malcolm finally thinks to ask as he blinks his watery eyes and stares down at the thin joint in his hand. Watches it burn and smoke and thinks it’s kind of beautiful.

JT stuffs his hands into his pockets and leans back against the bench again. He doesn’t answer right away, so Malcolm looks over at him curiously.

Something in the cop’s face keeps him silent. He thinks he recognizes it.

“Oh,” he says quietly, and dares another puff from his borrowed blunt. He only coughs a little this time, careful not to fully inhale the unfamiliar smoke. 

This night really is full of surprises. 

“Is it something… specific?” He fumbles through it, trying to figure out what he’s trying to say. He’s feeling extra floaty today, but doesn’t think he can entirely blame that on a single puff from a bad joint. If they’re in the business of honesty, he’s felt that way for a long, long time.  
  


“You my therapist now?”

Malcolm actually snorts. “Lucky for us both, no.”

JT doesn’t laugh but he smiles, and somehow that’s louder. It’s warm.

“I don’t know,” the cop lets the words out on a long breath, heavy. 

The profiler’s head is feeling kind of fuzzy and he has a moment of panic, wondering if that’s normal, before his logical brain takes over. 

Of course it’s normal, he thinks. It’s the whole point.

Everything is normal. Everything is fine. 

**.**

JT wandered away from the bar without announcing his departure, drunk enough to feel reckless and overheated. Irritable. Figured he’d take a walk and try to clear the ugly, unwelcome thoughts out of his head.

Running into a familiar face wasn’t exactly on the agenda, but he’s here now. Sitting on a cold bench in Central Park, watching Malcolm Bright smoke his first blunt.

Life is full of little surprises.

“Would it surprise you to know…” Malcolm trails off halfway, staring up at the clouded sky. “That I think about dying. All the time.”

JT stares too, watching the clouds drift in morphing marble patterns. “No,” he answers eventually. “It’d surprise me more if you didn’t.”

That silences them both. A warm breeze whistles through the trees, tugging at dry leaves and dragging them across the pavement with a noise like nails on frosted glass.

“It’s the nature of the job.” 

JT feels the need to add that, to tack it on the end of a thought like a postscript. He’s heard it countless times through the years, like a shitty bandaid on a gunshot wound. Plastering over the hole, even knowing plaster only holds its shape for so long when there’s nothing behind it. No framework or support or hope.

“Dead sounds nice.” Malcolm slurs a bit. “Sounds simple.”

Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but the cop has never agreed with anything more.

“This is the kinda shit talk that gets you days off,” JT laughs mirthlessly, rubbing at his eyes. His face is comfortably numb, his mind sluggish.

“Who’s gonna tell?” Malcolm turns a challenging gaze on him, one eyebrow sliding up in what’s probably supposed to be a serious expression. In his bleary state it just looks comical.

“Fuck all, that’s who.”

The wind pushes them together. The air between their bodies feels warm, but that’s probably just a trick of his imagination, like the lights dancing between the tree branches. Like the silence between them, full and loud.

“You want some?” Malcolm holds out the blunt.

“I’mma say no, for obvious reasons.”

“Nothing’s that obvious. Everything means something that means something else that… just, _lies_.”

JT raises a skeptical eyebrow. “That was some word confetti even for you, kid. You doin’ okay?”

“Great.” Malcolm says it with a shrug that shakes his whole body, like he’s a puppet and someone just jerked on the strings. It’s not even a good lie.

The cop isn’t sure what it all means, why Malcolm’s sitting alone smoking weed in the dark. Why he’s despondent and scattered, but it’s strange to realize they’re in the same boat. Or at least, different boats on the same ocean. He’s never entirely sure what’s going on in the kid’s head, and this strange encounter hasn’t exactly cleared anything up. 

He’s never been sure what to make of the kid. Pegged him as irritating and chaotic and all the worst parts of crazy. Slowly learned to lean into the crazy like it’s been there all along. Before he knew it, before he caught it happening, he learned to like him, too. Told himself he was just begrudgingly accepting him for Gil’s sake. And because despite his flaws, the kid’s proven himself useful more than once. 

Thinking about Gil, even inebriated, shakes the cobwebs loose. Reminds him that he can’t drift in twilight limbo anymore, that he has responsibilities. A weight on his back he can’t ever shrug off completely. 

He shakes out his shoulders, blinks the bleariness from tired eyes. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

“You go ahead. I’m just gonna… sit here. For a while.”

JT resists the urge to roll his eyes. “There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here by yourself, half-blitzed in that expensive-ass coat. It’s like you’re begging someone to kidnap you.”

“I wouldn’t mind if _you_ kidnapped me.” 

JT feels both eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. The throwaway comment should throw him, and it almost does. Instead it feels easy. Natural. “Yeah, see. You’re loopy.”

“I’m not loopy,” Malcolm frowns.

“Fine. High.”

“Well, I’m always a little high.”

“And I’m just gonna go ahead and pretend I didn’t hear that,” the cop grumbles. “Come on, up you go.” He reaches down and plants an arm under Malcolm’s elbow, almost bodily lifts him off the bench. “Where’s your place?”

“That way...” Malcolm gestures vaguely. Frowns, turns around and squints. “Or maybe that way.”

“Jesus. What’s your address, you remember that at least?”

Malcolm is staring into space, unhearing. “You know what sounds really good right now? Funnel cake.”

JT blinks. “You had like three puffs of that shit. Are you really this much of a lightweight?”

“Yes.” Malcolm grins stupidly at him, wavering on his feet. “And I’m just… really hungry, you know? Are you hungry?”

**.**

JT stumbles in the dark as they burst through the door into Bright’s apartment. The kid is leaning on him hard, and if he hadn't just watched him go from zero to blazed in thirty seconds, he’d swear the profiler was drunk. 

JT drops the plastic bag from the gas station on the floor and hauls Malcom over to the couch. Lets him fall gracelessly onto the cushions. 

Muttering to himself, JT helps himself to the cupboards until he finds a glass, fills it with water and brings it back. Grabs the bag of food on the way, because he’s not completely heartless.

“When you can sit up I’ll get outta your hair,” the cop explains as he physically grabs Bright’s hands, wraps his fingers around the glass.

“You don’t have to leave.”

“Technically I do. I don’t live here.”

“You could. Let’s be roommates.”

JT barks out a laugh that surprises him, loud in the spacious apartment. “Drink your water, dumbass.”

He’s coming off his buzz, he thinks, but still isn’t entirely steady on his feet. He tries to sit on the overstuffed ottoman and half-misses, sliding to the floor and trying to look like he meant to do that.

Malcolm boomarangs off the couch again before he really gets settled, spinning on his feet as his eyes search the apartment for something the cop can’t see.

JT watches his eyes light up, his coat hanging off one arm, his tie hanging crooked. He thinks it’s the most _Malcolm_ the kid has ever looked. 

“Let’s throw axes!”

JT licks his lips, frowns, and can’t think of a single good reason that’s a terrible idea.

“At what?” It seems like a logical question.

“The wall,” Malcolm gestures to the wall in question, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Fair enough.”

**.**

They throw axes. Whooping loudly when one of them manages to stick a blade in the now-ruined wall. They’re uncoordinated enough that it actually feels like an accomplishment when they manage. 

JT stumbles into the kitchen and chugs a full glass of water before the responsible, adult part of his brain finally kicks in. Before all the careless, heavy things that spilled out of their mouths tonight catch up to him. 

“We ruined your wall,” the cop says aloud, wondering what the hell got into them both.

“Ah, but—!” Malcolm slides on socked feet, pulling a rolled poster out of the corner. He holds it up to the wall, grinning devilishly.

“Nobody ever has to know.”

“I’m gonna know.”

“Shhhh,” Malcolm laughs, holding one finger up to his lips. “It’s our little secret.”

It’s strange to see the profiler like this, JT finds himself thinking. 

His mind is still churning slowly, body still floating in that alcohol-induced, understated euphoria, but he’s not far gone enough to miss how surreal the world has become. It’s strange to see the kid smiling without the mania behind it, to see his eyes shining like he’s enjoying the moment and the moment is all there is.

He thinks again about what Bright told him an hour ago, maybe several hours now. Wonders if the thoughts really come and go through the kid’s head with the same casual dispassion as they go through his own.

“Why do you wanna die?” He hears himself ask it, thinks maybe the alcohol is getting to him because damn that’s tactless, even for him.

Malcolm sighs dramatically, turning a half circle in the middle of the room as his head lolls on his shoulders. “I mean, why not? I don’t sleep, don’t function, my family is—well, they’re serial killers and debutantes, and I just… worry them all the time. And I don’t have any friends.”

JT winces and wonders if that’s true. Wonders why it makes his chest squeeze just a little. He falls silent.

“Why do _you_ wanna die?”

JT grumbles under his breath, turning the wood and steel axe over in his hands. He thinks he shouldn’t answer that, that he’s already said too much. 

“Not doin’ much good here.”

“You’re a cop. You help people.”

“That’s some fortune cookie bullshit and you know it,” JT calls him out, irritated. “Wouldn’t have expected it from you.” He lets his hand fall, lets the weapon tumble carelessly onto the carpet. He sinks heavily onto the couch.

Malcolm looks properly contrite, wandering around the ottoman to plop down heavily beside the cop, bouncing on the overstuffed cushion.

“Are you lonely?” The profiler asks eventually, staring at JT with an eerie kind of directness neither of them would tolerate sober.

JT thinks about that hard, pulling open a bag of Taki’s and trying one experimentally. They’re Dani’s favorite, and he thinks he finally understands why. He passes the bag across to Bright.

“Yeah,” he says simply. “Aren’t we all?”

“Cop out. Get it?”  
  


JT shakes his head at the cringey joke. 

“Like, I’m lonely, but being around people is worse. I feel like I make everyone around me miserable. There’s this… thing.” Malcolm gestures one hand in a circular motion like he’s trying to come up with the words, his mouth already full. “Where you either have to be holding someone up or you have to hope they’ll hold you up, A or B. I’m tired, you know? I don’t have it in me to just keep doing that until I die.”

Bright is half out of his brain and rambling in unfinished half-thoughts and vague concepts, but the cop is just buzzed enough himself to feel like he gets it. 

“I’m tired of playing this game,” he admits slowly. “You _help people_ , that’s what you call it. But do you? You catch one guy, and work hard to unfuck whatever the hell he did. And then he gets to sit somewhere comfortably and work on his degree for a few years, and then he’s just back out there, doing it all again. Or worse: you catch that dirty judge, or that wishy-washy jury and suddenly all that work was for nothing. And no matter how much work you put into it, you can’t ever save anyone. Not really.”

He shuts his mouth quickly, realizing he just said way too much.

“Is it always like that?” Malcolm says like he’s thinking out loud. Not really talking to JT, but into empty space. “Isn’t there ever a happy ending?”  
  


“For who?” JT throws a hand up because it’s infuriating to even think about, let alone give a voice to it. “Your victim, if they live? The damage is done. The shithead who gets a slap on the wrist; he ain’t ever gonna change. For _us?_ Chasing our tails, telling ourselves we’re making a difference and terrified that we ain’t.”

“So you’re worried you’ve never actually helped anyone,” Malcolm clarifies, distills JT’s disjointed brainwaves down into a single sentence.

The cop thinks about that, feels his forehead bunch together. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Silence stretches between them, Malcolm still crunching away on his chips, JT staring angrily at the floor because he doesn’t think he’s ever heard it put into words before. 

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.”

JT’s eyes slide over, his lips pursing as he tries to make sense of that one. “What is that, like Plato, or some shit?”

Malcolm’s eyes sparkle, and he shrugs a lazy shoulder. “Pulp Fiction?”

The cop snorts, something real sparking up in his chest at the heavy, crushing absurdity of it all. 

“You’re a fuckin headcase, you know that,” he groans. It’s not the first time he’s said it, but it’s the first time he’s meant it as anything besides an insult. 

He thinks the kid already knows. 

“What made you wanna be a cop?” The profiler asks at last, and when JT looks over at him this time, his head is leaning back and he’s staring at the ceiling.

“Nothing else to do after the Army,” he says vaguely. “Don’t gotta lot of options when you spend that much time building useless skills. Never really good at much besides fighting and shooting anyways. I’m a simple guy.”

“No you’re not. Simple guys don’t end up in major crimes.”

JT stares, wondering if Malcolm even knows what he’s talking about right now, or if he’s just stumbling blindly across strangely poignant revelations.

“I figured if I was gonna do anything with my miserable waste of a life, this should be it,” he finally says, more honestly this time. “If I’m gonna be wandering around taking up oxygen, I should be at least _trying_. And I ain’t got much of a family, or a life for that matter. If something does happen to me… well. Nobody’s really gonna cry about it.”

That’s a little harder to say out loud, even though he’s thought it more times than he can count. Because it’s easy to smooth over rough edges with those little catchphrases— _serve and protect_ —and harder to admit he just wants to squeeze a little drop of worth out of a life he’s already given up on.

He’s so deep in his own head, in the tightness in his chest, that it catches him off guard when Malcolm stands up suddenly. JT’s arms automatically go out to catch him in case he faceplants because he’s that unsteady. When he regains his balance, the profiler reaches down and grabs JT by the wrist. Tugs him to stand. 

“I would be pretty sad if you died,” Bright says.

JT swallows hard and doesn’t hesitate. “You know… same.” It feels strange to say aloud. It’s not his style.

The profiler watches him, and JT watches back. Traces the eyes that skim over his face like they’re reading him. It should bother him more than it does. 

A warm hand comes up to land on his chest, searing like it’s reaching through his shirt and skin to the organ laboring away underneath. 

The cop complies because he’s curious, strangely invested in this bizarre night with all its twists and turns. 

He looks down at Malcolm, struck all at once by their closeness. By the ugly shadows under the kid’s eyes, so easy to overlook now that they’re familiar. A part of him, like blue eyes and translucent skin and shaking hands. They seem darker, now. Deeper, somehow ominous. He can’t begin to guess how long it’s been since Malcolm’s slept: really slept. It’s maybe the first time that it’s ever bothered him. 

Malcolm stands there in absolute stillness for a moment, like he’s concentrating on the heartbeat pounding away under his hand. Like it’s important.

JT lets him. And when the moment passes, he lets Malcolm push him down again to the still-warm couch, lets him push his shoulders back and slowly climb on top of him. Knees straddling his hips. 

“What are you doing,” JT asks, even though it’s pretty obvious what the profiler’s doing and pretty obvious JT isn’t going to stop him.

“If we died tomorrow, what would we do tonight?”

The cop thinks about that as Malcolm’s weight settles onto him, chest to chest. 

“I’d crack open that bottle of Black Pearl behind the microwave,” he says seriously as he looks into blue eyes close to his own. “I’d drink the whole damn thing.”

“Is that all?”  
  


“I’d go to Judge Neary’s big-ass house and pound on the door. And when he opened it, I’d punch him right in the face for letting that fuckhead rapist Jacob Rainer off on a technicality.”

“Better,” Malcolm grins, both hands coming up to frame the cop’s face, thumbs tracing patterns on his cheekbones. “What else?”  
  


“Probably something like this,” JT barely breathes it, because Malcolm’s lips are a centimeter from his own.

The profiler looks him right in the eye, drops his gaze until it’s just slivers and specks of blue through his lashes, and presses their lips together. 

JT’s hand is wavering over Malcolm’s hip and the second their lips touch, he lets it land. Squeezes gently but doesn’t take control away from the profiler. Not yet. 

“What next,” Bright pushes, grinding his hips down. Just enough to hint at friction, slow and agonizing.

“You’re not in your right mind right now,” JT says instead of answering. “Fuck, neither am I.”

“We both know I’m not high.” The profiler tilts his head at him. “And you’re not drunk.”

He doesn’t really have a good answer for that, because Bright just knocks down all his excuses like bowling pins. Maybe he should protest more, push harder. Maybe he doesn’t really want to.

“What are you doing, Bright?” JT shakes his head, stares at the man above him and tries to understand what’s happening. 

“Does it matter?” Malcolm shrugs one shoulder, runs his fingers along JT’s neck and up the back of his skull.

“ _This_ is why we’re here. Because once a year, or a decade or once in our whole lives, we get to feel something good.”

JT can’t begin to argue with that, maybe because this does feel good, and he can’t even remember the last time he’s done anything like this.

This time, the cop kisses first. Drags his hands up the profiler’s slim frame to pull him in. 

Malcolm groans, an obscene keening sound that goes right to his cock. 

They stay there for god only knows how long, kissing lazily, exploring with their hands. Malcolm rocks his hips down in rhythm, and it’s slow and almost painful but it’s exquisite too. Teasing, burning, pressure. The cop is thinking about all the times he imagined doing this before and told himself that’s all it was. Idle fantasy, wandering imagination. It’s real, now.

“And if you were gonna die tomorrow,” JT turns the tables, murmurs it against wet lips. “What would you do?”

“I’d ride you.”

That funny twisting, clenching feeling hits him hard and JT’s breath hitches. It’s their last chance to back out, but he almost doesn’t care. He’s high on that fantasy of _nothing after this_ , and it makes him foolish and impulsive. Balancing on a knife’s edge.

Malcolm challenges him with a single look, crawls backwards just far enough to work at JT’s belt. 

And the cop lets him, because he doesn’t have the strength to stop him and worse, he doesn’t have a reason to. He couldn’t have predicted how this night would go in a million years, and he’s just angry and desperate and lonely and _lost_ enough to let it happen.

Malcolm’s hands are nimble and warm, and when they wrap around JT’s cock and guide it free of his boxers, the cop feels his last remaining brain cell disintegrate.

He watches in morbid fascination as Malcolm works his hands around him, draws his tongue up his shaft and flicks at the tip. There’s a slow, near-desperate deliberation to his movements, like he’s hellbent on enjoying himself and doesn’t want to waste a moment. 

It puts him at ease, somehow. Makes him think this isn’t all as impulsive as he thought, reminds him they’re two adults with every right to make their own choices. Hell, they’ve earned an interlude, a few brief moments of pleasure whatever way they can get it.

JT’s not the most vocal person alive by his own standards, but when Malcolm takes him into his mouth a sound comes out of him he didn’t know he could make. He can feel the blood rushing to his face, to his cock, and he clenches a fist at his side because otherwise he’s going to pull on Malcolm’s hair instead and he doesn’t want to hurt him.

Malcolm moans around him, a deep vibration that makes JT twitch. And he moves, his head bobbing up and down and his cheeks all hollowed out and his lips dripping, and JT thinks it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen in his life.

He can’t resist latching a hand into Malcolm’s hair, can’t stop himself from pulling lightly, releasing quickly. He’s not drunk enough for that, to take his frustration and despair and self-hatred out on someone else. Not by a long shot. 

The kid comes up for air, fixing him with a dark look JT wishes he couldn’t read so well. A look he wishes he didn’t understand. Malcolm grips the cop’s wrist and guides it back, to the back of his skull. 

“You don’t need to be gentle,” Bright rasps around swollen lips. “I don’t _need gentle_.”

JT looks at him for a moment, really looks. Hopes he’s not misreading what he sees and making a huge mistake. 

He lets both hands curl into Malcolm’s hair. Long brown locks usually so perfectly gelled and styled, falling now into careless curtains around his blue eyes.

“You’re sure,” he means it to sound like a question. It doesn’t.

Malcolm’s eyes glint in the half-light, and he drops his mouth again. Swallows JT’s cock like he can’t get enough of him, and maybe that’s what really does it. Strips away the last shred of control JT has been holding in a death grip. Knowing that when he slips and cracks, it changes everything.

Instead he holds on, tightens his hold on just the wrong side of cruel and thrusts his hips up into Malcolm’s hot mouth. Feels his eyes sliding shut at the choked, low sound that drags out of the profiler.

He isn’t sure what comes over him, or maybe it’s everything that leaves his mind. Everything he doesn’t think about. He doesn’t think about caring, worrying, hurting someone he doesn’t want to hurt despite his bluster and gruffness and jokes. Always holding back, always circling. 

For once, he doesn’t hold back.

Malcolm grips his thighs and holds on as JT fucks his mouth, moaning and choking and trying to take back control. The cop doesn’t let him, pulling that wet mouth up and down and meeting it with every snap of his hips. 

He doesn’t stop until he’s seeing white, until he’s dangerously close to finishing and he comes to his senses just long enough to recognize that he’s not ready. That the last thing he really wants is for this to end. 

It’s a mammoth act of self-control to catch his breath and slow down, to use that harsh grip he has on the kid’s hair to yank his head back and look down at him through half-lidded eyes. Taking in flushed skin and glazed slivers of blue.

He wraps a hand in Malcolm’s shirt and hauls him forward, kissing him. Devouring his mouth and losing himself in his own taste on Malcolm’s tongue.

“Change of plans,” Malcolm says when they part for air, and JT’s stomach twists with a dark satisfaction to see that his pupils are blown wide. 

“You got a condom?”

**.**

They’re both naked, chest to chest and sweat-slicked. JT’s cock is buried to the hilt inside Malcolm, and he has to sit there for a moment to catch his breath. To calm his racing heartbeat, to keep himself under control. 

JT grips the kid’s arm hard, runs his thumb over the bump of raised scars on the inside of his elbow he’s not drunk enough to miss.

It lights a fire in him, somehow. That helpless, hopeless despair that lives in his chest and drags him down. Knowing how badly they both want, _need_ an escape from it all. 

Knowing this moment could be all that stands between them and making infinitely stupid decisions late at night and out of their minds. 

He rocks his hips up in time, impaling the profiler and relishing the broken, dirty sounds that fall out of his lips with every thrust.

It’s rough and intensely heated, nothing between them but short breaths and naked skin. Need and agony.

He drops a hand to Malcolm’s cock, bobbing between them and leaking. Closes his fist around it and marvels at the smooth, elegant shape of it. Malcolm jumps at the contact, groaning and pushing up into his hand. 

Malcolm’s eyes are pressed shut, head thrown back. Little drops of sweat pooling in the hollow of his collarbone, and JT can’t take his eyes off him. 

All this time, and he thinks he missed it. Malcolm. The reality of him, with everything else stripped away. Beautiful, shattered, swimming in a familiar darkness. He was so caught up in all the ways he thought they were different, that he never keyed in on the realization that they were exactly the same. Lost. Reaching for a lifeline in the dark. Their fingers brush.

The profiler drifts both hands up to JT’s shoulders. Thin fingers, deceptively strong, lifting himself up to meet JT with every long thrust up. His legs are shaking, and that’s a whole new rush the cop doesn’t want to look at too closely.

“You don’t have to hold back, you know,” Bright breathes into his ear, and it sounds so controlled and calculated but there’s a hitch in his breath that isn’t.

It’s those little things that set him off, and JT thinks maybe he’s right. Maybe Malcolm really does just want to be fucked like they’re going to die tomorrow.

He digs his fingers into slim hips and slams up into the profiler, and if his face is anything to go by that’s what Bright was waiting for. He gasps, drags his nails across JT’s back and that does funny things to him, too.

JT throws caution to the wind. Lifts Malcolm up and drives his hips up, thinks he’ll never get enough of this because the kid is _tight_ and slick with lube and making the kinds of sounds that would put a porn star to shame. 

It’s not long before the cop gives up restraint entirely, flips them both over so Malcolm’s on his back on the couch. Hitches his knees up and throws one ankle over his shoulder so he can get a better angle. Deeper. He looks down and watches his thick cock disappear, in and out, and watches Malcolm take every inch of him and arch up for more.

Macolm comes first, twisting towards him with a strangled cry and sinking his nails into his arms. It’s enough of a thrill that JT doesn’t last much longer, pumping forward once, twice, before he feels release hit him like a freight train. His cock throbs and his vision goes white and it’s all he can do to hold himself up on shaky arms to avoid crushing the smaller body underneath him. 

Bright hangs onto him, their sweat-slicked bodies sliding together as they breathe and ride it out. Trying to slow down racing heartbeats and heaving chests.

JT reaches down, pinching the base of the condom and pulling out with a wet noise that makes his cock twitch in interest all over again.

“I think I needed that,” Bright mutters through heavy breathing.

“That makes two of us.” 

JT is still spinning, cleaning himself off on his boxers as he slumps back against the damp couch because they’ve all but ruined it at this point.

“You’re not gonna get all weird and regret this later, are you?” Malcolm tosses it out like a joke, but the cop doesn’t miss the very real glint of anxiety in pale blue eyes.

“Why wait until later when I can regret it now?” JT flashes a smile at him to sell the jab, relaxes as Malcolm grins back.

“Up for round two?” 

“Pour me a drink and I’ll be up for round ten.”

Malcolm levers himself upright and wanders into the kitchen, already looking infinitely more relaxed. Less pale, less drawn and tense. It makes the cop’s stomach flutter in a way he doesn’t really understand.

He drops his head against the back of the couch, lets himself breathe and enjoy the post-orgasm afterglow. Thinks it’s amazing how something as simple as good sex can bring him clarity and peace, like the world isn’t nearly as bleak as it felt a few hours ago.

Everything feels a little lighter now. Getting things off his chest, out of his system, did things for him he wishes he could bottle up and take like a pill every night. 

It’s not his time and he knows it. Because maybe he can help one person before he blinks out like a searchlight, fades into the fog. Maybe that person is Bright.

“Is the world still ending tomorrow?” He asks as Malcolm returns, drops a cold glass into his hand.

“I’m not really worried about tomorrow,” Bright says, “tonight is good enough.”

JT sits up, grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him in for a searing kiss that tastes like whiskey. 

“You’re damn right it is.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is out of left field, I know, but it happened. I'm in a dark place right now, please don't judge me. Featuring some old-fashioned face-fucking just for Tess <3
> 
> It's also a good excuse to throw you some updates as to what I've been working on.
> 
> Smoke & Mirrors: Will be updated soon. I promise there's been a reason for my unplanned hiatus. I took a short (okay, not short) break to work on a 60k word monster for the PSon Big Bang, which will be coming to you on October 25th. *internal screaming*
> 
> Stay tuned for Retrouvaille, coming to an AO3 near you in exactly 12 days:
> 
> .
> 
> Retrouvaille 
> 
> {roo-trou-vay} French  
> (n.) the joy of meeting or finding someone again after a long separation; rediscovery 
> 
> Summary: Malcolm and JT met in college, but their short-lived romance became a distant memory when Malcolm disappeared without a trace.
> 
> Ten years later, Malcolm and JT meet again when they find themselves working together on the Major Crimes Unit. JT is now a detective, while Malcolm is a professor of Criminal Psychology freelancing for the NYPD.
> 
> The Malcolm of today is withdrawn and scarred, surrounded by mystery. They slowly rekindle their old spark, and JT learns about the dark events that separated them a decade ago.
> 
> .
> 
> Just subscribe already so you don't miss it okay. It's another fluffy, angsty, drama-loaded whump-fest of a roller coaster and I can't freaking wait to share it with you!
> 
> Come join us on the Prodigal Son Trash Server: discord.gg/yqU58gW


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